# Imagine Nicholasville Road Public Hearing - May 20, 2021 > Auto-transcribed civic record · May 20, 2021 - **Permalink**: https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/meeting/5360 - **Source video**: https://lfucg.granicus.com/player/clip/5360?view_id=14&redirect=true - **Date**: 2021-05-20 - **Last revised**: May 20, 2021 - **Length**: 20,296 words > ⚠️ **Auto-generated content.** Audio from the official Granicus video was auto-transcribed with OpenAI's open-source Whisper large-v3-turbo model, run locally by The Lexington Times. Structured facts were extracted with GPT-4o; the narrative summary was written by Anthropic Claude. Verbatim wording may contain errors. See [methodology](https://meetings.lexingtonky.news/about/methodology) or [report a correction](mailto:editor@lexingtonky.news). --- ## Meeting Overview The Urban County Planning Commission held a video teleconference meeting on May 20, 2021, at 1:30 PM, presided over by Larry Forester. During the meeting, the Commission considered one agenda item: the Imagine Nicholasville Road Corridor Plan, which was approved. The Commission took one motion and vote during the session and heard seven public comments from members of the public. ## Attendance The following individuals were present at the meeting on May 20, 2021: * Ivy Barksdale * Headley Bell * Zach Davis * Anthony De Movellan * Larry Forester * Jan Meyer * Bruce Nicol * Carolyn Plumlee * William Wilson No attendees were recorded as absent or late. ## Votes and Decisions **Approval of the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan** [timestamp: 2:19:32] The body voted on approval of the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan. The motion was made by Headley Bell and seconded by William Wilson. The vote passed unanimously with 9 ayes and 0 nays. Members voting in favor were: - Ivy Barksdale - Headley Bell - Zach Davis - Anthony De Movellan - Larry Forester - Jan Meyer - Bruce Nicol - Carolyn Plumlee - William Wilson ## Public Comment Seven speakers provided public comment on the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan during the meeting. **Support for the Plan** Brittany Roethemeir, representing Fayette Alliance, spoke in support of the plan at [timestamp: 1:48:17], highlighting its potential to improve transportation infrastructure and economic prosperity. Blake Hall also expressed support at [timestamp: 1:53:17], stating that Nicholasville Road is currently unsafe and underbuilt, and that the plan would encourage sustainable development. Erin Hathaway supported the plan at [timestamp: 1:55:00] but emphasized the importance of incorporating green infrastructure and beautifying the corridor. **Concerns and Opposition** Fred Pope raised concerns about traffic volume on Nicholasville Road at [timestamp: 1:42:54], suggesting the relocation of the freight line for public safety and proposing its use for transit rail instead. Stuart Smith, representing CBL, expressed concerns at [timestamp: 1:56:48] about the plan's flexibility for future development at Fayette Mall, requesting more flexible mixed-use guidelines. Amy Clark raised concerns at [timestamp: 2:01:55] about the land use guidance for the corridor, emphasizing the need for infrastructure improvements before adopting new development standards. Barry Saturday opposed the plan at [timestamp: 2:11:17], criticizing the public input process and expressing concerns about the plan's impact on vehicular traffic and emergency services. ## Contested Items **Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan** Community members raised concerns about the feasibility and implementation of the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan. The primary points of contention centered on three areas: - **Traffic impact**: Concerns were expressed about how the plan would affect traffic patterns in the area. - **Plan feasibility**: Some community members questioned whether the plan was practically achievable. - **Development guidelines**: There was a call for more flexible development guidelines as part of the plan's framework. The disagreement reflected broader community concerns about balancing development goals with practical transportation and regulatory considerations. However, no specific outcome or resolution was documented in the meeting record. ## Imagine Nicholasville Road Corridor Plan The Planning Commission discussed the Imagine Nicholasville Road Corridor Plan during this meeting [timestamp: 0:22:29]. The plan aims to improve transportation infrastructure, promote transit-oriented development, and accommodate future growth along Nicholasville Road. Key speakers in this discussion included Kenzie Gleason, Chris Woodall, Tim Reynolds, Anne Warnick, and Andy Knight. The Commission reviewed the corridor plan's objectives and framework for enhancing the Nicholasville Road area through coordinated transportation and development strategies. The discussion focused on how the plan would support transit-oriented development while managing growth along this important corridor. The Planning Commission approved the Imagine Nicholasville Road Corridor Plan. --- ## Decisions - **Motion** — passed (9-0): Approval of the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan --- ## Full transcript It always ends and says no, tell me why Is it so that I never can say goodbye? No, no, no, no, no, never can say goodbye Every time I think I've had enough to start heading for the door There's a very strange vibration That pisses me right through the core It says turn around you You know you love me more and more Tell me why Is it so So when I let you go I never can say goodbye girl Ooh baby I never can say goodbye Oh, I never can say goodbye, girl Never can say goodbye, girl Never can say goodbye No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no I never get to say goodbye, girl Oh, baby I never get to say goodbye No, no, no, no, no I never get to say goodbye, girl I never get to say goodbye, girl I never get to say goodbye No, no, no, no, no I never get to say goodbye, girl Oh, baby I never get to take it back to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, to the back, Running off self-control Getting close to an overload I'm forgetting the nowhere situation Showing the soul to push on the sun I'm hanging out my box and legs I'm waiting for a long vacation Be good to know the soul to the sun Nobody knows you All be good to yourself You're walking out higher Hard in a first time All be good to yourself We can't give no more We're one and all but you gotta say no I'm turning off the noise, it makes me crazy Looking back with no regrets To forgive this new birthday I want to live a piece of love to turn to Be good to yourself, nobody else will Oh, be good to yourself You won't go on your head, I'm higher Cut it off the star Oh, be good to yourself If you were good to yourself when nobody else could Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh We'll be right back. I'm out. Thank you. When you want all the love you deserve And the heat's on your mind Don't you even think about it I'll be there just wrapped around you I can't hold back what I feel inside It's just a fact that you should be mine Anything you want You got your body by my love You're body by me You should be mine Anything you want You got your body by my love You're body by me And you won't And you won't Can you know Should be mine Or mine Any way That your heart has been denied You can come to me Every time that we're together Just confirms The good thing we've gotten And something this good Can't be defined One thing's for sure That you should be mine Anything you want You got your boy by my love You're boy by me You should be mine Anything you want You got your boy by my love Thank you. For you When it all proves too much Too much, too much I'll pull you through I can't go back What I know inside It's just the fact That you should be mine Anything you want You got you born by my love You're born by me You should be mine Anything you want You got you born by my love You're born by me Can you, can you, can you, can you, should be mine or mine? Can you, can you, should be mine? Thank you. We'll be right back. Get over it. All this writing and crying and bitching a bit. Get over it. Get over it. You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash. But you might feel better if they gave you some cash. The more I think about it, old Billy, what's right? Let's kill all the lawyers, kill them tonight. You don't want to work, you want to live like a king. But the big bad world doesn't owe you a thing. Get over it. Get over it. If you don't want to play, then you'll let it rip it. Get over it. Get over it. It's like going to conventions Every time I hear you speak You're making the most of your losing streak Some call it sick And I call it greed Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, you drag us around like a ball and chain. You wallow in the gift, you wallow in the pain. You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown. But you're wounding the door to bring everybody down. You bitch about the present, you blame it on the past. I'm about to find you in a child and kick its little ass. Get over it. Get over it. I'm a bitchin', a moanin', bitchin' a bitch. Get over it. Get over it. Get over it, get over it It's gotta stop sometimes, why don't you quit? Get over it, get over it Get on! Baby loves me, yes, yes, you does All the girls outside, yeah Says she loves me, yes, yes she does Gonna show me tonight, yeah She got the way to move me, cherry She got the way to prove me She got the way to prove me Cherry baby She got the way to prove me All right We'll be right back. All right. Ain't got no right, no, no you don't. I ought to be so sad, ain't it? Won't need bright lights, no, no we won't. Gonna make our own lightning. She got the way to move me, she got the way to move me. She got the way to move me She got the way to groove me Oh, I want your soul to go to Girl, we do whatever we want to Oh, I got the way that you're doing Tell me, baby, really get to me She got the way to prove it Tell the baby She got the way to prove it She got the way to prove it She got the way to prove it She got the way to prove it Thank you. Chris Edwards, are you broadcasting? Go ahead. You're on the air. Good afternoon, everyone. Glad to see everyone on this beautiful day. It is now 1.30 May 20th, 2021. We're at Urban County Planning Commission public hearing, and we're calling this meeting to order. I'd like to read the Governor's statement. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, state of emergency, and Governor Beshear's executive orders regarding social distancing, this meeting is held via teleconference pursuant to Senate Bill 150 as signed by the Governor on March 30, 2020, and Attorney General Opinion 20-05, and in accordance with KRS 61.826, because it is not feasible to offer a primary physical location for this meeting. So next on the agenda item, we've got Imagine Nicholasville Rural Corridor. And Chris? Or is Kenzie first? Hello, Kenzie. Good to see Chris as well, just following. All right, well, thank you, Mr. Chair, and good afternoon, Commission members. On behalf of planning, our partners and our project team, we're pleased to present to you today how our community has imagined Nicholasville Road. As you know, this study was an outgrowth of Imagine Lexington, and it's the first in-depth study, envisioning exercise, that's focused on one of our major corridors throughout our community. During that process, we asked what role will corridors like Nicholasville Road play in accommodating our city's growth as they evolve and change over time. How can we focus and guide that change as we become a more populated and dense city? And then what demands will that place on our transportation system? And how can we meet those demands while also becoming a more livable community? One that has an equitable, safe, and efficient way for community members to navigate through town for their day-to-day needs. The MPO, the Transportation Planning Agency for our region, and the elected officials that comprise that board were also interested in answering these questions. They were glad to join in partnership with you, the Planning Commission, and LexTran to engage in this discussion. Our core study team was represented by these partners, and although there were many others who contributed to the development of this plan, I wanted to personally thank Chris Woodall and Chris Taylor with our Long Range Planning section, Fred Combs with LexTran, and Max Conyers with the MPO. We're all here today to help answer any questions that you may have, with the exception of Max, who we hope is enjoying his retirement in other ways this afternoon. Today marks our final presentation of this plan. Following a year and a half of study that Tim and his consulting team will outline for you, Tim will share the data, the goals, the process, and the outcomes of our effort. He'll discuss how we engage the public and key stakeholders, including landowners and businesses, residents, city and state transportation agencies, and how they helped us name the problems and identify the potential solutions. We've also shared this plan and presentation to the Lex Tran Board, to the MPO Transportation Policy Committee, as well as the Urban County Council. We believe, based on their reactions to this plan, that this is the beginning of our collaboration with them. and we think that there is sincere interest in continuing these conversations and taking the next steps to implement the plan. But first, the task before us today is to share the details of that plan with you and to request your approval. Our consulting team will walk us through that discussion and they have been very purpose-driven and an exceptional resource of professional expertise throughout this process. We have with us today our project lead, Tim Reynolds with WSP. Tim is a certified planner specializing in transit planning, including bus rapid transit. Dan Warnick with WSP also joins us. She is a registered engineer and traffic engineer and served as our deputy project manager. We have Andy Knight, a landscape architect and urban design expert with MKSK, which is a regional planning and design firm, as well as Luis Huber-Calvo, a certified planner with MKSK. Before we turn it over to them, I wanted to note that today is our last of several opportunities that the public has been offered to inform and comment on the plan. In addition to any public comment that you will hear today as part of this hearing, we have invited constituents to submit their comments by email through our Imagine Lexington address. and then those comments would then be entered into the record and submitted to you. And those emails are provided in your packet. We've also provided staff findings in your packet, which Chris Woodall will discuss as he talks about how this plan relates to Imagine Lexington, both today and moving forward. I'll turn it over to Chris. Thank you, Kenzie. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members of the commission. It's a pleasure to bring to you the adoption of a plan for Nicholasville Road that's kind of been a long time coming and many years in the making. And several of you who have been on the commission for a while may remember the early formative discussions that led to the growth strategy that's laid out in Imagine Lexington. So it's no shock to you all that it's a strategy that leans heavily on maximizing the potential of our primary corridors. and Lexington is among our most important roadways and assets. So the challenge that we face is trying to figure out how we maximize that development potential, respond to different contexts along our diverse corridor, but also still ensure that Nicholasville Road moves people efficiently as a key piece of our transportation infrastructure. So luckily, as Kenzie said, we've worked with an excellent project team, had some great response from the public to sort of help us answer these questions. And the end product is an Imagine Nicholasville Road plan that lays out an implementation path that is incremental towards meeting our community goals through both public and private investment over time. So it's a direct implementation of an implementation item coming out of Theme D, Placemaking Policy 12 in Imagine Lexington, which states that we should perform corridor studies along arterial streets that examine land use and transportation elements. So this plan that's before you today does precisely that and does it while checking off quite a few goal, objective and policy boxes from Imagine Lexington along the way. So it speaks to complete streets, safety for all modes of transportation, providing housing options, accommodating for an exacerbated shift in the retail and professional office markets through redevelopment of our underutilized space, regional connectivity, context sensitivity, sustainability, and a lot more. And of course, transit-oriented development that is critical to allowing bus rapid transit to succeed. So needless to say, we're excited about the possibilities of this plan and what it holds for Lexington as we continue to grow and evolve over time. The recommendations, though, it's exactly that, growing and evolving over time. They don't happen overnight. They'll be incremental and they will require continued support. So this will act, the plan will act as a guiding document for the Planning Commission and the Council, as you all consider individual land use proposals that come before you. But it also will provide the basis for other potential public investments and legislative changes over time to make this vision that's laid out in this plan a reality. So with that, I'll refer to your findings that you all should have in your Google Drive and their findings for approval, noting that the procedural processes were followed for notice and public engagement per KRS 100. So with that, we will urge the Planning Commission to vote for approval of this plan, which will make it an official element of Imagine Lexington, the 2018 comprehensive plan. So from the staff side, that will conclude our remarks for a little while. As Kinsey said, we'll be available for questions as we go on. But at this point, I'd I'd like to turn it over to Tim Reynolds and the consulting team to walk you through the recommendations of the plan. Tim? Great. Thank you, Chris, and thank you, Kenzie, and thanks to the Planning Commission. We very much here at WSP, MKSK, and our other partner, Razor Communications, appreciate the opportunity to have served you, to have conducted this exercise that's so very important to Lexington and Fayette County. I'm going to be one of three people presenting the story of Imagine Nicholasville Road and the outcomes. That'll include Ann Warnick with WSP, as well as Andy Knight from MKSK. So we'll be passing the baton as we go through this presentation. I'm going to ask Ann, who will be controlling the slides, to, I hope she can, is able to share the screen. And as soon as we launch that, we'll move forward. Thanks, Ann. Can you all see the cover slide? Just want to be sure. Great. Again, thanks very much. Why don't we go to the next slide, Anne, in terms of going over what is it that we'll be describing today. You know, a little bit about the background of the project, what we heard from the public, what the vision of this plan is, and what are the steps, the action plan steps on a category by category base that you all will be taking in the next several years to implement the recommendations of Imagine Nicholasville Road. Next slide. As was described a few minutes ago, this is a direct outcome. In fact, one of the first major outcomes of the plan, Imagine Lexington. And it's definitely an opportunity to implement several of the goals. And three of them are laid out here, which is dealing with high density or more intense development along the region's higher capacity roadways to facilitate further transit investments. And related to that, to support potential bus rapid transit, we call it BRT opportunities, as well as to encourage transit oriented development. And we'll be talking about that a little bit later on by increasing density along the major corridors in the region and looking at infill development as a way to support ridership, reduce vehicle miles travel, handle a lot of the congestion or some of the congestion along the corridor. And again, implement the goals not only of this project, but of Imagine Lexington in general. Next slide. We did a lot of data collection, a lot of information gathering, analysis, synthesis. One of the primary pieces of data involves the level of traffic and how safe or unsafe the corridor is. And we looked at it not as a whole necessarily, but in terms of its component parts. But as you can see, some of the key findings in terms of where crashes are and when they occur, almost one quarter of those crashes occur during the evening rush hour. You can see from the thick red line where traffic conditions are at their worst, which tends to be in the area generally between New Circle Road and Manowar Boulevard. But that's not to say that the remaining segments of Nicholasville Road are always free and clear. They also have their congestion and safety issues as well. We identified problem intersections based upon safety and crashes. You can see the list in the lower right of the slide at Reynolds Road, New Circle Road and Manowar Boulevard. The latter are the two areas that I was talking about in terms of the heaviest traffic and the one with the most safety and traffic volume related issues. Go ahead to the next slide, please, Anne. Thanks. When I talk about, for a moment, alternative mobility, that's all the ways of getting around besides driving the car. So looking at pedestrian and bicycle and transit infrastructure, we also took a deep dive in terms of those networks and those systems. from a pedestrian and bicycle point of view. You know, we call it pedestrian infrastructure. A lot of people call it sidewalks, but in any event, you know, it's excellent along the northern end of the corridor, but it declines in terms of its availability and its continuity the further south you go. The entire corridor is traversed by a Lex Tran route, Route 5. It is Lex Tran's most popular route. These numbers are pre-COVID, but featuring an average of nearly about 40,000 monthly passenger boardings. So in other words, 10% of all the Lexington riders are riding the Route 5. Obviously, we have UK, downtown, and all of the shopping destinations at the southern end, as well as the medical destinations along the center or the middle portion of the corridor. Next slide, please. We looked in depth in terms of the land uses today and what might the land uses be like in the future. It is a very diverse corridor. As you all know, once you leave downtown, highly dense, built up to the sidewalk, then the University of Kentucky, the medical facilities. Tellingly, interestingly, that there is a residential section right in the middle, mainly single family homes. You can see from sort of the, I guess, maybe light mustard color, but those are residential areas. So when we're dealing with a corridor, we just didn't look at what directly fronts on Nicholasville Road, but what's behind some of that frontage as well. as all those folks, those businesses, those residences and institutions are impacted as well. The corridor serves some of the major employers within Fayette County, obviously UK, Baptist Health is huge, urban county government, a lot of employees up and down. But again, a lot of retail, a lot of university, a lot of medical, and then mixed employment along the way. Next slide. In terms of land use, one of the specific areas that Imagine Lexington focused in on was housing. And we looked at some of the conditions of housing and some of the statistics as well, which you can see right up along Nicholson Road, how many residences there are, what the median income is and such. But given the need for affordable housing and such, taking a deeper dive in terms of land use as it relates to housing was one of the tasks that we performed as part of the study. Next slide. You know, it was a different world in the last year, very different from when we started to where we are today in a virtual world, perhaps soon coming out of that, but still, that's where we are right now. A very well done project website was one of our key factors in terms of trying to get as much good and meaningful public input as possible. We issued electronic e-newsletters and a number of press releases and used social media. We had two public meetings, both of which were originally scheduled to be in person. We were able to do that for the first one, which was about a week or so back in early March, just before everything started to shut down. And we had an extremely good turnout down in Lexington Green, which was our public launch of the project. We actually started work the previous Thanksgiving in November 2019, but the public kickoff was in March of 2020. We held a number of surveys, especially those that were posted online, and a lot of one-on-one or group-on-group stakeholder engagement, whether it was with the University of Kentucky, the owner of Fayette Mall, and a number of other stakeholders up and down the corridor who felt that it was very important to do that type of engagement. And we met with a number of those more than one time over the duration of the project. Next slide. We heard a lot from the public, a bit of a summary in terms of, well, how do people use that corridor right now? And again, we're dealing with stuff, information that's, you know, early part of 2020 for the most part, but almost half of the people when they say, yes, I use Nicholasville Road to, they go shopping. You know, given that's not a surprise, given all the retail, particularly the southern half of the corridor. Another corridor of those who use and responded to the survey are taking Nicholasville Road to get to work one direction or another. In terms of transportation modes, there are two columns here where you've got the car, transit, bike, walk right in the middle. In terms of how people use the corridor today, and then based upon their feedback, how would people use the corridor in the future? What was their desire? And you can see that today, 68%, you know, I drive that corridor. But a lot of people want to be able to take transit or have better options to bike, clearly, to make it easier to walk. So that's part of the vision that we'll be talking about that starts laying the groundwork for some of the specific recommendations of the plan. Next slide, Ann. Everyone has issues, and this is what's called a word cloud. When people kind of said, here's what I think about that corridor, and one or two words, you can see number one, congested. It's a very busy corridor. In other words, it's cars, traffic, delays, dangerous, slow. So the next slide, though, goes to the next direction. Well, okay, making Nicholasville Road a safe and efficient place where people want to be, what is the vision? Obviously, people would love all corridors, including Nicholasville Road, to be free-flowing. Everyone also, of course, wants it to see a safe corridor. So we had a number of categories, and even though, let's say, Bikable or Greener doesn't score necessarily as high as, say, free-flowing, we still did receive a lot of comments on some of those categories as well. Next slide. This is a bit of a snapshot, a few quotes out of some of the total responses that we got where people actually relayed their very specific comments about the corridor. But again, it's a case of if certain improvements would be done, I'd be more prone to walking or riding a bike or taking the bus or just using that corridor in a different way so that it doesn't just feel like a place to avoid that I have to endure to get from A to B, but is a place that I would kind of actually enjoy being in. Next slide. A lot of public feedback, some negative feedback. I mean, that's normal in any kind of process. It's a complicated corridor, a lot of different stakeholders. But in terms of positive feedback, we did hear a lot in terms of we do like the idea of bus rapid transit to support transit improvements up and down the corridor. A lot of people are looking forward to some change one way or another so that it becomes a reality, that it moves from talk and paper and document to implementation reality. A number of people did see that they would like to see that development vision occur through the private sector funding. And a lot of the folks said they support their overall vision and they want to address in terms of the greenery, the green space, the environment around and along the corridor, such as more trees, more open space, not necessarily on street parking along the area. Nicholasville Road doesn't have that much now, but maybe less surface parking lots and perhaps more in structures, whether it's underground or otherwise. When we look at some of the feedback that was not so positive, there are a number of folks, not the majority, but some thought maybe BRT in Lexington is not feasible for this particular corridor or the city in general. Some folks were concerned about using taxpayer funds being used to develop private property. There was some reluctance among some folks about the idea of mixed-use development versus single-family development, which does predominate in the center portion of the quarter and quite a bit throughout the city. And some feel that, you know, just focus on adding more traffic lanes, although we know that that, given the circumstances and the layout and the built environment along Nicholsville Road, would be a very difficult and very disruptive thing to do. But again, these are some snapshot pieces of information. We develop project goals working with Kenzie and Chris and the rest of the team, which includes Lex Tran and Fred Combs is with us today. And those goals to summarize, increase the intensity of land uses to accommodate population growth, which is happening, which is inevitable, and prove the viability of mass transit. Transit exists now, but for many, it's maybe not as viable an option for everybody. How do we make that more viable for a broader range of people? Connectivity is important along with safety for all modes of transportation. And it's very important to not what we call silo improvements. Just look at development for the sake of development and look at transit for the sake of transit, but coordinate those improvements and those investments over the course of the next several years. And in the end, to develop a cohesive sense of place along the corridor. Next slide, Anne. So in terms of an action plan, we have three main areas, looking at the transportation network itself, safety and improving mobilities, and then looking at, okay, now we've got those, what about development strategies? And per our scope of work, we identified and fleshed out three catalyst sites. These are concept locations that Andy Knight will be talking about in a few minutes to foster the creation of new places that aren't just a store, a business or whatever, but are people places, mixed use to accommodate to the changing demographics that Lexington and Fayette County is experiencing. And related to that, again, place making opportunities, enhancement of quality of life, a more beautiful environment to foster a more cohesive and enjoyable community and quality of life. So I'm going to start off with one of the three here in the box, actually in a slightly different order here. A plan that incorporates transportation and land use with these three general categories of concepts and improvements. One is complete streets, and we'll be talking about that. Transit-oriented development, Andy will describe that aspect of the plan. But I'll start with the middle box here in orange, bus rapid transit or BRT. When we look at BRT and we go to the next slide, what we're looking at is a higher quality, a premium transit line that would run from the transit center downtown to the end of the corridor, just beyond Man of War Boulevard and beyond Emmert Farm. It would be about eight miles long. We look at, we call them stations, but essentially they are major bus stops along the way. One of the keys of the success of bus rapid transit is the R in bus rapid transit, making it faster than the existing local service that we have today. And there are a number of treatments to make that happen. One is to look at some priority treatments I'll describe in just a second, as well as looking at, well, do we need to stop everywhere? And that's one of the complaints that a lot of folks have is that, gee, it's slow because it's constantly stopping. That sort of goes both ways because, well, you may be constantly stopping to pick up and drop off people, but that is an issue for some folks. It would terminate at the southern end at a park and ride facility at Brandon Crossing. Definitely would serve mixed-use development along the corridor. And all those circles, those station locations, are looked at, most of them, as potential transit-oriented development opportunities. By running this type of service about every 15 minutes or so with fewer stops and some priority treatments here, we can cut travel time by 25%, which is quite a bit faster than the service as we see it today. We accomplish that again through the station spacing, but a mix of BAT lanes, that's an acronym for business access transit lanes. In other words, curb lanes that are really focusing on the bus through traffic is discouraged. You can take a right turn in or a right turn out, but for the most part, this would be more for buses than it would be for cars. Or in a few segments, reversible bus-only lanes. And as I mentioned, signal priority that gets buses to the intersection a little bit quicker and not get bogged down at long red lights. At the same time, though, we're not proposing that Lex Trend Route 5 go away. But it would be modified, perhaps less frequent, but to supplement to for folks the ability to access it at any existing bus stop, and perhaps to get on and off of the line on Nicholson Road to serve some areas that are not right on the major corridor, but would provide some opportunities to connect to Nicholson Road. Next slide. Again, I talked about stations. They would be spaced depending on the area between one quarter all the way up to one mile spacing. The spacing tends to be wider the further south you go where there's a little bit less density. More than a bus stop, clearly. It's designed to convey to folks that this is not something that's going to go away, that's going to be rerouted onto a different street. That it's permanent and substantial. They're also an opportunity to convey a very positive idea, identity, excuse me, an image of the BRT line, which could be a little bit different than the Lex Trans service as we see it today. There's a lot of design opportunities, again, to both have a consistent look of the line, as well as, though, to integrate the design with the surroundings, given that we have such a mix of different kind of land uses, from single-family residential to shopping malls to UK and the hospitals. They provide some level of protection from elements, would be designed to be very safe and visible with amenities such as seating, lighting, and messaging. Very important is to provide real-time bus information, not just the schedule saying, well, it's scheduled to come in 10 minutes, but we'll tell you that it's actually coming in 10 minutes or eight minutes or whatever the real time is, or should there be a delay, whether there's an accident or whether saying, you know, bus is delayed by three minutes. In other words, sit tight. It's the reliability of the service that's as much as is important to folks who use transit and who are prone to using transit as the speed itself. Part of it is that when people get access to bus, most of them will be either walking or riding their bike to the bus. Some people will be able to park their car, such as at the lower end. But transit requires a good, strong pedestrian connection network. And so that would be part of the plan. And again, as I mentioned, auto access where possible, but specifically a park and ride down at the end at Brandon Crossing. Next slide, Ann. I mentioned, and this is a mouthful here, center running, bi-directional, bus-only lanes. We do recommend, and Ann will be describing these in a few minutes as she goes through the corridor, segment by segment from north to south. This is a case where if there is sufficient space, it doesn't have a negative impact on traffic flow overall to run in the center of the street so that it can not occupy so much space that two lanes would occupy, but is safe through the use of special signals to control bus movements to ensure safety, that there would be passing lanes for buses at stations. And that's illustrated in that lower diagram where you can see the red line splitting out that would be at a station. It allows us to keep all driveways open and provides a refuge for pedestrians who will be crossing the street as well, which we don't have in a lot of sections of Nicholasville Road where people have to hustle, unfortunately, to get from one side of the street to the other. Next slide, Anne. I also mentioned a bit ago, bath lanes or business access transit lanes. Again, motorists are not prohibited, but discouraged from using the bath lanes. In other words, motorists would use it to make right turns into a driveway, a parking lot or parking garage and such, or across street, but for the most part would be discouraged from using it as the through traffic lane so that the bus can move a little bit faster. It's demonstrated in dozens upon dozens of communities across the United States to improve travel times and reduce delays. One example that we talked about in the process of imagine the Goswara Road was up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a similar size city where it's used to great success. You can run bat lanes throughout the day designated that way or just during certain points, certain periods of the day. It's very inexpensive treatment. It's very minimal in terms of infrastructure improvements. it's signs and paint for the most part. And I'm going to turn it over to you to talk about Complete Streets and take us a little bit through the corridor a little bit later. All right. Thanks, Tim. So like Tim mentioned, Complete Streets is one of the other components of this plan that we wanted to focus on. And there we go. So what does that entail? Complete Streets involves all modes of transportation. We look at improving bicycle, pedestrian connections, transitions to neighborhoods. So looking at ways to give people the opportunity to connect to the corridor. We're looking at vehicular transportation improvements. We want cars to be able to safely navigate and efficiently navigate the corridor. And then also transit, which Tim just mentioned. So some of the tools of Complete Streets, and I'm kind of going to go through a couple of the different strategies and then I'll take you through segment by segment through the corridor and how each of these strategies gets implemented throughout the length. So the first one is bicycle and pedestrian enhancements. We are looking at shared use paths to accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians and also to provide a buffer with vehicular traffic. We know that vehicles are Our safety is a big concern, and so we want to provide that buffer for folks that want to use a mode besides their cars. Parking protected bike lanes is another feature that we think could have some potential, especially near campus. So that's where there might be on-street parking, and then between the on-street parking and the sidewalk is a bike lane. So there's that buffer for bicyclists. And then also some enhanced urban intersection upgrades to provide full ADA access where it doesn't currently exist. Access management is another tool that we're recommending a lot throughout the corridor. And so what access management does is it really balances the competing needs of mobility and accessibility, which is accomplished by removing and consolidating curb cuts and full access points. So we look at ways to consolidate entrance points onto and off of Nicholasville Road, which will enhance safety, and then also adding medians to prevent left turns. So again, if we can consolidate the locations where people are turning left, that's going to improve congestion as well as improving safety. KTC did a study on access management in Kentucky. And for high volume urban roadways, they found that access management resulted in 30% fewer potential reduction in crashes. And then also a 24% potential reduction in delay, which I think is something Nicholasville Road, we would all agree, could benefit from. Finally, we have turns at intersections. So innovative intersections are another key tool that we plan to implement throughout the corridor. If you look at treatments such as restricting left turns, allowing U-turns, and innovative intersection designs, these can be used to allow for a lot of additional green time for the through movements. So again, if we're kind of allowing people to maybe turn right and then U-turn and then go through instead of making a left turn onto a side street, you can eliminate that left turn traffic phase. And that gives you more time for the mainline through phases to go. And there's been a lot of research done that these types of improvements can really increase capacity along the mainline, while also not causing too much additional travel time for vehicles that are trying to turn. So these contribute to access management, they improve traffic progression, and then they also are a lot safer because they reduce the number of conflict points at intersections. So to tie it all together, these are kind of strategies that we use throughout the corridor. And so I'm just going to briefly highlight each segment. We divided the corridor into six segments based on really the characteristics of those. And so I'll highlight what some of these, what we're recommending along each. And as was mentioned, the full plan is available on the project website. So there's a lot to go through and we would be here for a long time if I tried to give a detailed play by play of each segment. So I'm just going to hit the highlights. But if you have questions, don't hesitate to ask. And also, if you want to look into it a little bit more, please feel free to access the full report online. So our first segment is the downtown upper to limestone, upper and limestone segment from Vine Street down to Scott Street. We are looking at transit throughout, like Tim mentioned. In this case, it will just be running in mixed traffic on the curb lane. We would have the station at the downtown transit center. And then going inbound, it would stop at the Target on Upper Street. And coming outbound, it would stop at the Good Samaritan on Limestone. As I mentioned before, parking protected bike lanes are recommended, as well as some enhanced urban intersection upgrades to improve ADA access and make sure that we've got good safe crossings for all modes. University of Kentucky section, this is where Tim mentioned the center running bi-directional bus lane. So this is where we'd be looking at running the bus through campus. Since this is really one of the highest ridership corridors, we think it makes sense to try to give the bus its own exclusive lane to make it more to make it more efficient through this area. And then, as Tim mentioned, that bus lane can actually act as a refuge for pedestrians, which there are a lot of pedestrians through this area. There would be stations at UK's campus near Morrill Hall, as well as the hospital kind of near that parking structure. But there's also the opportunity that these, where we're showing these stop locations were just based on our initial kind of our initial analysis. These aren't like hard and fast, like they absolutely have to be here or couldn't be modified slightly. One thing we are recommending starting here through this campus section and really through the rest of the corridor is a shared use path along both sides of the road. We'd like for it to be 10 feet wide so that it can accommodate bicyclists and pedestrians in both directions. Additionally, some innovative intersections, we think at locations like Virginia Avenue and the Waller Cooper Drive Avenue, or Waller Avenue Cooper Drive, excuse me, intersection. We think there's some potential there to gain some efficiencies at intersections that typically have a lot of delay with cross street traffic. Next, we have the neighborhood and Baptist Health section. Here we would be running the bus in mixed traffic again, just due to the narrow footprint, there's really not a lot of space to give the bus a dedicated lane. We also are looking at access management because there are so many access points and potentially having a median, most likely something that's flushed so that emergency vehicles can traverse it, but something to really allow for better bicycle and pedestrian access and to keep all to stop all like that center turning movements of all the cars that are coming in and out of hospitals and the neighborhoods and kind of consolidate those and make it safer. We'd be looking at a station, a bus station at Baptist Health, and then also potentially an event only station near Kroger Field. So that might not be something that's necessary all times, but during game days and other events, that could be a potential BRT station. And then also access management. I think I mentioned that just, oh, the shared use path. That's what I was going to say, shared use path up and down the corridor as well. And you can see there are some additional bicycle and pedestrian connections that we're recommending through this area as well, because we know that there are a lot of folks who bike and walk to UK and other locations throughout this segment. Next, we've got the Southland Drive to New Circle Road section. this is where we're recommending bat lanes which is where you would take that right lane and allow it for just buses or right turns now one of the things that we want to make sure that we emphasize here is that we don't want to improve bus efficiency and totally mess up vehicular travel speeds and efficiency so a key component to this and this is kind of a three-legged stool the transit and the vehicular component because you can't have a bat lane if you aren't already changing the way that land use is so that people are able to walk and bike more safely so they don't have to use their cars, but then also making improvements to the existing infrastructure of the roadway so that vehicular traffic can be processed more efficiently. So people kind of see this and oftentimes freak out, but I want you to know this is being done in combination with some of those innovative intersection treatments that we talked about that would really increase throughput along Nicholasville Road so that it's not like you're going to be standing still in traffic at the expense of a bus. It's hopefully we're going to be moving traffic efficiently along with having a more efficient bus option. And then again, the land use piece that Andy is about to talk to is going to be another key component in that. So here we'd have stations at Southland Drive and then another one at Pasadena Drive and the shared use path throughout. And then as you can see, we've also got some bicycle and pedestrian connections to neighborhoods that we're recommending here as well. The following New Circle Road to Man and War segment, again, continuing with the Bat Lanes, I'm wanting to make sure that because this is the highest traffic volume segment, we really want to make sure that we maintain three lanes of through traffic for three lanes for vehicular traffic in both directions. So you can see a bunch of yellow lines and that's where we're recommending extending turn lanes all the way through so that the buses can use those along with vehicles. Multiple stations here, one at South Park Lexington Green intersection, one at Fayette Mall, and one at the Walmart and Summit locations. Again, innovative intersection treatments to try to process vehicular traffic more efficiently in combination with the improved transit and the bicycle and pedestrian upgrades as well. And then finally, Manowar Boulevard to Brandon Crossing. Here we're looking at BRT and mixed traffic with stations at Emmerich Farm and Brandon Crossing. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has an access management plan for this section of US 27 that begins just north of Manwaran, continues south to Nicholasville. So we're recommending that the recommendations of that access management plan be followed, which again would hopefully increase vehicular through traffic and then that would just benefit the bus that's running in mixed traffic. And continuing with the theme of improving bicycle and pedestrian upgrades. Also recommending a park and ride transit stop at Brandon Crossing. For the purposes of this project, our scope was to study it through Brandon Crossing. So we have the BRT line ending here, but I think the ultimate goal would be to take it all the way to Nicholasville in the future. So that's kind of the quick highlights of of the transportation recommendations. And like I said, there's a lot here. So feel free to study these at your leisure and we're always happy to answer questions. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to Andy to discuss transit-oriented development. Thank you, Ann. So yes, I'm going to talk about the third component of our study, which is transit-oriented development. So what I'll do is talk about just what is transit-oriented development. Then I'm going to talk about our process of site selection for our catalyst sites. Then I'll talk about those specific concepts and ideas that we explored for those particular catalyst sites. And then talk about the regulatory framework, which addresses some of the development typologies. So the next slide in begins to share what is transit-oriented development. Of course, for those who have traveled the corridor, I live here in Lexington, so I often there's a lot of development opportunity throughout the corridor from downtown all the way out to Brandon Crossing. What we're looking at here is a is a is a study that relates transit oriented development with the bus transit, bus rapid transit itself. So there's a synergy there between those and studying where those particular bus stations may be in conjunction with development opportunities. So we worked hand in hand with Ann and Tim on this. So we're going to strategize where the most ideal locations for those BRT stations would be and where those catalyst sites would be for future development. A few of the items about transit-oriented development, the idea is that there's an increased density along the corridor. So we begin to move away from those single story, single use buildings that are currently throughout the corridor, especially on the south end, and begin to promote more mixed use development that's more walkable where we have a mixture of uses where it may be retail in the bottom of office above or retail and residential above as well. and also just purely residential. Also, I think Tim mentioned the housing study where there's a deficiency in housing in Lexington. So there's demand for a lot of this as well. It also takes into account the walkability and the walk shed from the adjacent neighborhoods as well. So this not only is something for people that are going to be riding the BRT or who are going to be living and working in these areas, it's also a resource and a destination and amenity for people that are in the surrounding areas and developments. So it's kind of a win-win for everyone. Just a quick idea on the concept, the diagram in the top right begins to show how the existing model with the bus stops currently exists. So you know that there are multiple stops along the way that extends your travel time if you're going a long distance along the corridor. What the BRT does is begin to identify fewer bus stops so that there's less stopping and more traveling time. And those circles that are dashed there are where we would concentrate the transportation oriented development. So next slide, Ann. So we went through a fairly extensive process in identifying catalyst sites. As I mentioned, there are several throughout the corridor. For our first pass at it, we identified 26 sites that were candidates for potential redevelopment and that would align with the BRT route. As we talked with developers, both in within Lexington and also out of state, we also talked to stakeholders, some of the landowners. We also got feedback from the public. And through that process and working with Kinsey and the team, we arrived at the three catalyst sites that we're going to be sharing here today. That's South Park and Crossroad Shopping Center, Fayette Mall, and Emmer Farm. All of these just happen to be south of New Circle Road. We think these are really great opportunities to explore this idea. Again, these are concepts. They're not proposals. This would have to go through an entire development process. but what we wanted to do is share the possibilities and what can happen along these corridors in these areas. So the first one, the South Park development, it's just south of New Circle Road. It's on the east side of Nicholsville Road. You can see through the existing photographs that this does reach back into the existing neighborhood. There's a retention pond that's back there. It also has kind of the more suburban style shopping centers where you've got large swaths of parking out front. and then bigger box stores that are behind that parking areas. We also looked at the crossroads. That's at the corner of Nicholsville Road and Reynolds Road. The next slide begins to show how an increased density could begin to transform the space. Again, create that more walkable neighborhood, create that gateway into the development. We did several iterations at how this might impact the existing development. This one showing the existing development pretty much intact. We've removed a few elements to create that road frontage along Nicholasville. But again, this would be that mixture of commercial retail, housing, office, to create that walkable community and to create that mixture of uses that really promotes less demand on the vehicle and more walkability. There would still be parking demands here, although parking demands and requirements in Lexington are being reduced. There is still a demand for parking. We can't assume that all parking is going to go away. So there are concepts for structured parking within this as well. So this was one concept for the South Park and Crossroad Centers. The next one is the Fayette Mall. We're also looking at the plaza at Fayette Mall. Those two kind of combined into one larger parcel. You can see here, again, large swaths of asphalt paving. Urban heat island is something that is real and something that, you know, what we want to do is to promote a more sustainable development also. So I'm thinking of sustainability, higher density, better use of our land use is something that was most important to this planning team. So that in conjunction with the BRT, this became a really great opportunity for another station. So the development, which is shown on the next slide, begins to show that large parking lot that's kind of the, you know, that suburban icon, if you will, that identity marker, begins to erode at that. And now it creates a frontage along Nicholsville Road. Those pink areas, which you also saw in the previous scheme, which is shown here as well, those would be more pedestrian oriented priority faced or priority given to the pedestrian and still be some cars and streets that would move through there. But that would be the areas that would be more public realm as opposed to parking lot circulation. and so you're seeing some mixture of red that would be commercials retail and then also you know of course office and residential here the other idea too is that when you create this mixture of uses it takes the the pressure off of sort of that one-way traffic in the morning and the one-way traffic the other direction in the evening this allows for office to occur here as well so maybe it takes some of that demand off of that pressure of the roadway if this becomes a work center for people who may be using the BRT to get to this particular location, kind of going against the grain, if you will, with rush hour traffic. We're also showing over there on the south end at the plaza additional new development, creating that gateway that will embrace that newer hotel that's currently under construction today. This one also shows the BRT taking a, instead of having the on the road, there are some grade changes that are there that we need to consider. So this one would have the BRT station within the development, as you see there with the black and white dot in the center along that black line. And then the third is the Emmerich Farm, which is out at the southwest corner of Nicholsville Road at Manowar. We did talk with UK on several occasions, and this was a great candidate to explore further development and more density along this corridor. So as that translates into the development concept, which is on the next slide, you begin to see the potential for density along here. Again, we're capturing that road furniture on Nicholsville Road, so it has that identity there. It has that visibility for retail and commercial along there. And it also creates that livable space for people to interact and socialize, live, work, and play, if you will. There are a couple locations for hotels. And then, of course, weaving in open space and green space. So there's that opportunity for community gatherings, recreation, and just that exposure to nature also. So keeping some of that open space character that's currently there on the working farm here today. A couple of new access points from Nicholsville Road. But again, creating at the south end there, you can see the BRT locations that would be close to the southern end. There's also a dash line that's one at the top. That's an alternate route that could go through the mall. but right now that's an alternate and the proposal is to keep the BRT along Nicholsville Road. So the next portion of this is the regulatory framework. So we know that Nicholsville Road is not the same section or the same land use from downtown Altibran and Crossing. And so this can't have the same development typology from end to And we have to consider the different contexts that are along that corridor. And so what this regulatory framework does is it establishes this mechanism for achieving a 20-year vision, creates stations and development topologies that respond to existing context, provides a sample of how design guidelines can be implemented along the corridor, regulating elements like setbacks, building placement, and building heights, provides detailed action items for adoption. And then it serves as a recommendation on future land uses, decision and development standards. So the next slide is going to show the various station locations that are recommended within this plan. You can see on here we've got 13 different stations. Those have concentric rings that go out from the station itself. Those are the quarter mile and the half mile buffer. Those are comfortable walking and biking distances. So it not only addresses those moving up and down the corridor itself, but it also addresses those who may live in the vicinity that would like to walk or ride their bikes to a BRT to then get to their next destination. So these placements were strategic so that there was as much overlap and continuity as possible. So there was some good coverage for the BRT. So the next step after this was beginning to think about, okay, what are those sections along Nicholsville Road that have different character? And as a team, we decided that there was an urban center, which is more downtown than UK campus, with the density that's there currently. Moving further south, there's a neighborhood, which is near Central Baptist down to Southland, some of it at UK as well. Density's lower there, more single family. We wanted to be able to respond to that appropriately. Then there's Southland to New Circle. That's kind of where it opens up. You see a lot more surface parking lots, some lower density and more single use developments. So that became the suburban town center. And then beyond that, that was the regional town center typology that we began to develop. And so each of these came with their own guidelines and setbacks. But when we applied that to the bus stations, the 13 that was on that previous slide that now we've applied those typologies to, you begin to see how those colors begin to respond to each of those typologies. And that would have an impact on that type of transportation-oriented development. How would that become developed over the course of time in terms of density and setbacks, character, those kinds of things? So those were the highlights, and I'll kick it back to Tim for next steps. Thanks, Andy, and also thanks, Anne. In terms of next steps, we've identified, and it would be in the documentation that the Planning Commission has, in terms of a number of short-term, long-term steps, some funding ideas and opportunities. You know, one thing about this concept plan, Imagine Nicholasville Road, is that it has so many diverse components that can be implemented individually. But the idea behind the plan is that it all works together. So transit and transit-oriented development and complete streets, moving traffic more efficiently, moving people, giving them the options of using transit or better walking conditions and biking conditions. It's all designed to work together, but from an implementation point of view, they all have different directions that they can go in. So at this point, we'd like to wrap up our presentation. Very much appreciate, just go to the thank you slide, Ann. Very much appreciate your time. And again, I had the opportunity to work for you on this very important project. Thank you, Tim and your team. Just before we move forward, just want to check to see if there's any commission members that have any questions for Tim and his team. Ms. Plumlee? Thank you, Chairman. My question would be, in reading some of the citizen comments. One was reflective tape or paint lane markers on Nicholasville Road. Could that be done immediately without waiting for this project to officially move forward? Would be number one question. And the number two thing I noticed was reduce the speed limit? Is that something that could be addressed now without waiting for some of the other nice things that we want to happen out there? I think I'll take that question. Yes, I think certainly lane markings could be implemented much sooner than later. I would have to defer to our traffic engineering department and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet in regards to speed limit adjustments. There are processes that they go through to make those determinations. And we would, you know, certainly encourage them to investigate that and see what their results and their findings are. Thank you. Yes, okay. I'm curious about connectivity between like South Park. you were looking looking at this did you did you all think about bridges over uh some you know some of these wider these intersections um you know pedestrian like bridges like is being built out on uh i think the command of war at hamburg uh i mean is was that part of this discussion or is that an add-on? Yeah, I'll answer that. That was kind of an area that we had to tread lightly around because we knew there was some appetite for it, but it's also fairly expensive. And so I think what we try to do is we try to keep recommendations like that somewhat general. So if we could pinpoint to a location and say, hey, let's improve pedestrian access here or, you know bicycle access here and we don't necessarily give a specific say oh it has to be a bridge and then that way I think that gives the city some flexibility to investigate that but without locking them into that that has to go there because I don't think that they I think again given treatments like that that are fairly expensive we were trying to avoid saying you have to do this here but instead saying hey let's let's solve this problem and then in future phases as we really get into implementation, then we can talk specifically about how, you know, what's the best way to go about doing that and keep our options open. And, and beyond that, I think, you know, we brought this up at, you know, the earlier presentation that we have with you is, is, is access into these sites, you know, safe access, you know, who, who is going to be responsible for that once you know we get this this brt up and running yeah so i think that that's going to be a kind of a combination of things so i think um the regulatory framework that andy was speaking to when and that's going to kind of be one of the next phases that um that the city is going to start looking into the zoning and the code for these different typologies and so I think some of the bicycle and pedestrian facilities, some of that can be put into the code so that when people do redevelop, that's part of the requirement is that you need to have these sorts of access points. But then also, like I said, in the plan for the transportation piece for the areas that were directly on the roadway that the city is either city or state right of way. We tried to highlight areas where we're saying, hey, we need to provide this connectivity. And I remember specifically your comment from our previous meeting where you had said, hey, we need to make sure we have access around Lexington Green. And so we did add that into the little map that we created to say, hey, we need to improve bicycle and pedestrian connectivity in this area. So I think the city, for areas where roads that the city maintains, I think we tried to highlight areas where there's pieces that they can do, but then for the land that is owned by private developers, hopefully as redevelopment occurs, there will be some requirement on them to provide those transitions as well. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Mova. Yeah, a couple of questions. First of all, thank you all for the presentation. I was trying to envision these different bus lanes, the center bidirectional and then the one going down the right lane. And the right lane may be there at different times during the day. So how are buses going to transition from the center across to the right safely? I couldn't really picture how that. And then my second question was, in the areas where you're reducing left-hand turns, the new left-hand turns are going to have more traffic. So are those going into commercial areas, or is that residential? And what's the impact to traffic flow once it gets off New Circle Road? And I'll start with the bus one. But there are special signals. In fact, they're used for trains. that essentially would hold a green or hold a red light to allow a bus, let's say if it's in the center lane, and it typically happens at an intersection where there is a traffic signal, to allow that bus to transition into, let's say, the curb lane for the next several miles. So it's protected through signals, and that's pretty common out there in the country in terms of how they operate these things. We've looked at, for instance, in Cleveland, where they transition from center lanes to curbside lanes, and it works very well. And then, yeah, I'll go kind of answer the question. So, again, this is a very, I guess, conceptual discussion at this point because we don't have, you know, specific recommendations at specific intersections. We're kind of saying this is a treatment type that we think could work. Um, but as far as, yeah, if you're displacing left turns and you're, you're putting them somewhere else, you kind of have a few options. One is you can provide median turnarounds, um, that are, that can be signalized. And so you can kind of coordinate your signals within allow people to then, you know, go past the signal and turn around in a U-turn in a protected way that has a signal that's coordinated. So you're not, you know, causing more traffic issues. And again, if you have something like that, it's just a two phase. So it's like a quick stop traffic to let the, you know, the median vehicles turn around and then they can go and either go through or right. How, you know, how they, whichever direction they're going. So that's one option. Another option would be to, yeah, to like turn them right in advance of where they're trying to turn left. And then they would go with the through movement. So the goal is really to not add more left turn, like not just move the problem, but, you know, to say, oh, well, we don't have these left turns. but now we've got to give more green time for these left turns, but it's instead to eliminate the left turning movements and then make them go concurrent with other through movements. So again, you're just moving more traffic and the real efficiency comes if, you know, when you think about a typical intersection on new circle road, you've got your main, your main line, left turns, your main line through, your side street, left turns and your side street throughs. And so if you can eliminate those left turns, then now all you have is your main street throughs and your side street throughs you can do two things one is you've got less lost time for when the signal cycling yellow and red um and then the second thing is you've got you can reduce your cycle length so you can uh have so instead of like it being three minutes to serve all you know all four of those directions now and instead maybe in two minutes you can have you know 80 seconds for the through movement to go and 40 seconds for the side street. So it's just getting vehicles through more efficiently. So it's just really kind of changing the traffic patterns, if that makes sense. And we don't, you know, a much more detailed traffic study is going to be required to figure out how exactly that's going to work. But it's a concept that we know works and that we know there's some potential for on this corridor that would help move traffic. Thank you. Yes, Mr. Bell. Y'all have done a remarkable job in this study. And conceptually, it just it really answers so many of our questions. And I would I would assume, you know, really what you're emphasizing is, is the efficiencies now of traffic. I have a hard time, you know, what you've done is, is you, you know, the density that you're, that you're adding the infill, and it's remarkable. But with my simple brain, I'm trying to figure out it's already an issue with regard to Nicholasville Road, and now we're adding so much more density out there. I guess my question to you maybe Andy is how much how much more how many more people do you feel like through all of your your development are we are we attracting to this area and and how conceptually is it going to be just efficient enough that we can that we can manage this this this these these additional people out there it just have a hard time. fully understanding that simple question. Sure. Well, I'll start and maybe Tim, some of his experience in these BRT corridors and TOD can add some additional thoughts. One of the questions we asked ourselves at the beginning of this process was, what type of development makes sense along this corridor? The one thing we did arrive at was development's going to happen at some point in time. That's, you know, and for us to say the status quo is the right approach. I think all of us on here would realize that that's probably led to where we are right now. So continuing to do what we are at the moment is probably not the solution. You know, it's not add one more lane. That's the solution. We've all been there. The idea with the mixed use, again, if it were a single use higher density, that might be something of more concern. The idea with a mixed use is that you may have somebody live, work, and dine, and shop, and do all their things that are there, so they're actually not having to get in the car during the day. So conceptually, you're decreasing the demand potentially on the vehicle. The other is that when you're creating these centers or these higher density destinations, if you will, along the corridor, you know, specifically, let's just say in rush hour in the evening when people are going in one direction out of town, you know, to go home to Nicholsville or one of the suburbs that they live in, that's all movement in one direction. This would create these potential office locations, these restaurants, destinations that are different locations along the corridor so you have traffic going in different directions as well so you're not taking all the emphasis or you are taking all the emphasis on a couple lanes in one direction and then spreading them so they're going two directions now so it's kind of a multi-faceted multi-layered approach uh it's not the silver bullet of let's add one more lane thing i think it's that's why we've looked at this from multiple different perspectives complete streets So people have the option to ride their bikes to walk the BRT. So people have an option to get on the bus so that they can ride efficiently and quickly to get to one location or another. And then the the the the TV so that it's not one or two or three destinations for people to go along the corridor, but it's multiple destinations. So I hope that answers. Tim, I don't know if you have any additional thoughts on that. Well, you sure covered the various aspects, particularly about where it provides the opportunity to spread the traffic out a little bit more over the course of the entire day. Because like anything else, you tend to build a facility that accommodates so much. If you try to design it to build for your peak period, it would be multiple lanes across. And that's just not what folks want. That's not going to happen. So providing options, not putting all the eggs in one basket is kind of what we have today. And then Ann described a number of techniques in terms of access management to improve the flow, you know, that involves maybe not so many incessant curb cuts that you have for people going in and out or curb cuts near corners and things like that. So, again, it's not a panacea, but it, as Andy described, through a number of different ways, helps spread out the use of the corridor in a more efficient way. that's that's really very helpful and again it's it's idealistic it's fantastic um have y'all any other models any other cities and things obviously you studied others but something similar that you utilized as a source to demonstrate you know for our sake although from a bus rapid transit point of view we did a virtual tour we were unable to go up there in person indianapolis that's a very new line, but they've taken advantage of that very big investment. It's a 20-something mile long north-south line to look at their zoning, to look at their access management so it's still a work in progress. Although the city is much, much bigger than Lexington, but a lot of folks in the Midwest look to Cleveland, their Euclid Avenue corridor. If you had seen what it looked like 10 years ago, it was a very problematic corridor. It's a boom corridor right now. Now, granted, that's not a radial city, you know, with a downtown where roads are, you know, fanning out. There's a number of parallel roadways that were able to accept the traffic. But from a development point of view, by able to focus development at those BRT stations, you know, they're able to just, you know, the money that goes into various infrastructure is used a lot more efficiently. So those are two examples. I very briefly mentioned Grand Rapids being a mid-sized city, comparable in size and population to Lexington. And the proof in the pudding there is that the community is very happy with their first line to the point where now they've opened a second line and are planning their third. Well, it's really, really exciting. We really, I thank you all very much for your efforts. It's a lot of work. Thank you so much. Thank you. You will. I may have missed this, but it's a very simple question. What's the future of the reversible lanes that we have now? Yes, I'm glad. I realized after I finished that I skipped over that part. So the idea in order to make this all work, the reversible lanes would have to go. And we did look at traffic volumes and did this, the city of Lexington traffic engineering, they've got micro simulation model of this corridor. And so we looked at what delay would be throughout the corridor with just current levels of traffic, both with and without the reversible lanes. And as you would imagine, the section through the neighborhood kind of between UK and Southland Drive is really the pinch point. And so while, you know, taking away a lane in the peak direction obviously increases delay in that direction the it's more than offset by the improvement or the decrease in delay in the off-peak direction because currently like in the as we all know the p.m. peak when you've got one lane going into Lexington going northbound like the amount of delay is just it's really high and so even though you are increasing southbound delay somewhat you're not increasing it by as much as the northbound delay is being reduced by having a second lane going northbound. One of the quick follow-up, if I could, what about traffic signals? Are they going to be synchronized in such a way to keep that traffic moving? Yeah, that's definitely, I mean, there's definitely an operational piece to this, and traffic engineering is kind of my background, and so, you know, that's kind of what I get excited about, is trying to think like, okay, how can we really optimize? Because, I mean, there's a lot you can do just with, with traffic signal timing. And then once you start looking at things like, you know, adding in some innovative intersections and things like that, there's really a lot you can do between just slightly changing traffic patterns and updating signal timing parameters that can improve traffic flow a lot. So that'll definitely be a key component of making this all work. One final question, you know, Nicholasville road is also your major hospital corridor and you've got track you've got emergency vehicles moving in and out of that so how does that play into the plan yeah i mean hopefully you know the goal is that if we're making the route more efficient for everyone and hopefully that includes emergency vehicles it is something i know that um again when we're looking through the neighborhood section the desire to have a median there you know we would love to be able to put a nice median that's raised curves with plantings on it but because of the vehicle or the emergency vehicles you know we had to change that to say okay it's probably going to need to be something with you know that's more flush to the ground that can be mounted by emergency vehicles so that they can go around traffic because we know that that's a an important an important safety piece on the corridor for sure okay thank you any more questions from the commission okay Ms. Blumney thank you um did anybody talk about funding what how are we going there um so I'm not sure if if Kenzie or anyone from the city wants to to speak to this we did include some language in the report and the kind of final and next step section that discussed some different sources of funding and ways that things can be funded. From a transportation standpoint, a good section of this is on state route. So there's going to be some coordination with KYTC that needs to happen to get some of these projects funded. But then there's also a few other funding mechanisms that we've outlined in the documentation as well that could be utilize. Mackenzie, I don't know if you have anything to add on that. Yeah, I mean, I'm representing the Metropolitan Transportation Organization, which oversees the federal funding that comes into the Lexington area. I mean, that's done in coordination with the Transportation Cabinet, but there are certain funds that we have discretion over, how those are spent in our community and other ones that the state has ultimate discretion over. And there will be steps along the way that we need to take, like Anne mentioned, you know, a more detailed traffic study, simulation study, and those are the types of things that we could certainly pursue and help support through the MPO and through various programs that exist for those very types of activities through the Transportation Cabinet. As far as major capital projects, we often apply for grants. We have much of our bike and pedestrian infrastructure throughout Lexington is provided through with federal grants. And then there are some larger funding pots, and maybe Tim could speak to this, especially in the transit arena, as well as in transportation. We have things like our Town Branch Commons project downtown, for instance, was funded through a competitive grant where you present a project that is perhaps unique and doesn't fit quite into the typical transportation planning process that can be competitive for those types of funds. But you have to be very prepared. You have to have your ducks in a row. You have to know what you want to do and make sure that it can work to be competitive because there are communities all over the country that are competing for those funds. So working through this planning process and the steps that come after that are what is needed to make sure that we can actually see those projects come to fruition because of the communities that we're dealing with. But the funding is available. We We just need to make sure that we're prepared to make a good case that Lexington is ready to move forward with it. Just briefly on the transit side is that there are a number of grant programs. Like you're saying, Kenzie, they're highly competitive. But one of the factors that the federal government looks at is that is what you're going after part of a plan? is a part of a multi-disciplinary plan that just doesn't deal with transit, but also looks at land use and potential transit-oriented development, really makes those projects a lot more competitive. And one other point in terms of, say, bus rapid transit is that, unlike, let's say, a rail line, which you have to build the whole thing, is that bus rapid transit can be implemented incrementally. So as you're able to cobble together funds or get a grant, whether it's buses or for shelters or for the technology for real-time information or to even implement the segment of reversible lane, you can still operate the service. It won't be 100% what the end result is, but it will get you there on a step-by-step basis. Nobody knows what the outcome of the federal infrastructure bill is going to be. There does seem to be an inevitability, for instance, that over the next 10, 20 years, that there's going to be a lot of conversion from diesel buses to what we call zero emission buses, especially the battery electric buses that LexTran already has been introducing in its fleet. So that's an opportunity as well for LexTran and so many other agencies out there. But LexTran has a bit of a head start in that it has some and it has been implementing the infrastructure there. um kensley just on that note about the funding uh i'm sure there's going to be some public private partnership opportunities there as well especially on the private area like fayden mall you know that's not going to come from the city right and it's one tool one mechanism that we often use is if we can have a property owner dedicate right away to us for those infrastructure improvements that can be used as the local match that is necessary to match the funds. They're usually 80% federal funded, 20% locally funded. So there are a number of projects where we have received dedication right away in exchange for providing the match for the local government. And Kenzie, in transit, there's even a number of examples of selling of naming rights. in Cleveland. It's not called the Silver Line or the Euclid Corridor Line. It's the Health Line. And the two major institutions, Cleveland Clinic and the University Hospital, for I believe about 10 years contributed $10 million to get the naming rights, which helps offset some of the operational costs of that particular line. They also recently opened a line to the west side of the city of Cleveland. It's definitely less infrastructure intense, more akin to what we're talking about here along Nicholasville Road. And Cleveland State University purchased the naming rights for that line. So there were a number of, you know, it requires a lot of work, but there are a lot of opportunities out there for some level of private investment. Thank you, Kansas. Thank you, Tim. It looks like Ms. Plumlee had it. I wanted to thank them for the explanation, and I hope they can find enough money soon for the paint markers. or Nicholasville for the lane markers. Thank you. Okay, let's hold one second. So, make sure that we have any other questions. Planning Commission. Not seeing any. Now, next up is public comments. I know we have a few folks that are out there via Zoom that would like to speak on behalf of this particular item today. So, what we would like to do is let everyone know that I'm going to time you just to make sure that we can get everyone in in a timely manner. We give everyone two minutes and we'll start from the top, but you can do so by raising your hands, excuse me, via the Zoom. We have one hand raised right now. It's Mr. Pope. So we will go in order from there. So Mr. Pope. Mr. Pope, you can unmute yourself. Can you hear me? Yes. My name is Fred Pope, and I'm on this issue from a long time ago. I wrote the educational plan to reverse the traffic lines back in 1978. And from that time until now, we've gone from 150,000 people to 300,000. And the issue that I see on this proposal is if we could have an expressway that ran parallel to Nicholasville Road, we could take the volume of traffic off enough to where this plan could be implemented completely. And it's a good plan. But the volume of traffic on Nicholasville Road right now, the state says there's 100,000 traffic count maximum coming down there. If we add one and a half people to each car, that's 150,000 people on that road. It's like an expressway. And I got to say on an expressway with that volume, there are no bike lanes. There are no bus lanes. It's a free-flowing thing to allow people to get to work and get across town. So I've made a proposal that on a public safety basis, we need to relocate the freight line that runs parallel to Nicholasville Road all the way from downtown to Nantpeak into Jessamine County, the fastest-growing county. and after that is done and the reason for that is it's a ticking time bomb with hazardous materials traveling down through there if the bomb goes off all three of our major hospitals are right there the University of Kentucky is right there and they're all within a one mile radius that would have to be evacuated if there was time. I believe that the railroad will be moved at some time or be relocated at some time. I think it ought to be done proactively and that that abandoned line then be repurposed. And one thing that the Planning Commission and the Imagine Lexington left out was when you brought in the consultants to look at this, you only considered roadways. You did not give any consideration to the potential for the one corridor that this community has, which is those freight lines that run from Broadway all the way to Nicholasville Road. And if you had, I think the consultants may have looked at this more seriously and said that this is in the public's public interest to relocate the freight line, eliminate the potential for catastrophe that could literally doom this community. It's happened in other communities. And that's my admonition to you is reduce the volume on Nicholasville Road. And it's not going to go to Tates Creek or Harrodsburg Road because those are already full. The only opportunity for the future is to use this corridor for transit rail. It can be expanded beyond no matter how much you need it to go in the future. You just add rail cars. And if you repurpose those lines, you're talking about above ground rapid transit. That would be the cheapest way that you could ever have that. And that's my admonition to the council. I'd be happy. I've looked at this issue for 40 years. and I'll be happy to talk with you at any time. Mr. Pope, if you could please state your name and address for the record. It's Fred A. Pope, P-O-P-E, 975 Edgewater Drive, 40502. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. next up all right next is Brittany Brittany you've been allowed to speak if you want to unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record please thank you Brittany Rothmeier Fayette Alliance 603 West Short Street Lexington Kentucky 40508 Chairman Forrester members of the Planning Commission I also supported a letter that should have been entered into the record, but wanted to express Fade Alliance's support for the Imagine Nicholsville Road Plan and applaud planning staff on their efforts in this endeavor. So as Lexington continues to evolve, investment in our transportation infrastructure really plays a critical role in our success and is essential to the overall quality of life of our neighbors and our sustained economic prosperity. Innovative updates to guide development on our busiest corridor are key for future growth and provide the tools to overcome some of our greatest challenges here that include affordability, equity and access, and housing, transportation, and infrastructure. So the recommendations brought forward in the Imagine Nicholasville Road Plan further the goals that were laid out in the 2018 Com Plan and really set us up for future success in many ways, officially accommodating growth, improving quality of life, and promoting economic prosperity. In 2017, Fade Alliance commissioned a study to identify underutilized properties that offered future redevelopment opportunities inside the Urban Services Foundry, which identified over 9,000 non-residentially zoned acres of opportunities, primarily along our major corridors. We also know from the 2017 housing study that we need to diversify our housing stock to meet our housing needs, which includes missing middle housing like duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes, and other types of multifamily housing. And based on the data, the comp plan therefore recommended focusing more dense growth on our major corridors like Nicholasville Road and their implementing walkable transit-friendly development to support enhanced transit opportunities and emphasize that this type of development wouldn't be appropriate in our established neighborhoods. So Imagine Nicholsville Road identifies three initial sites that are prime opportunities for redevelopment to achieve multiple goals. Better use of our vacant and underutilized land, encouraging new housing types, diversify our housing stock, and work towards greater affordability, and promoting higher density near existing transit and other amenities. The recommendations for bus traffic transit and complete streets, which focus on safety and accessibility for any mode of travel, can improve the quality of life, accessibility, and affordability for anyone traveling this corridor. They can help make modes of transportation other than personal cars feasible in Lexington. Transportation costs are the second largest expense for families after housing. The average family can spend up to 20% of its income on transit expenses, and the average burden can be up to 30% for low-income families. Increased transportation options mean greater access and affordability for all of us. After decades of car-centric development in Lexington, this plan lays out a framework for making development about people while considering the realities of vehicle dependency intrinsic to our culture. It will take work to change the attitudes toward transportation, but this is a strong and necessary foundation to better serve our community. The Nicholsville Road Corridor serves as our backbone of economic development. Planning staff found this area of influence includes over 100,000 employees, 30,000 residents, and over 3,600 businesses. Research shows that providing innovative solutions to public transit challenges and investment in this transportation infrastructure can significantly contribute to an entire region's competitiveness for good jobs and an educated workforce. Reducing travel time, costs, and reliability issues connected with car dependence can provide significant savings to households and businesses, increasing jobs, income, and business sales, contributing millions of dollars to a community's economy. There are many important things achieved by this proposal, encouraging responsible use of existing land for redevelopment, increasing opportunities for diverse housing options, offering safe, multimodal transit options, and increasing affordability, access, and equity in housing and transit. As the recommendations are implemented, special considerations should be taken to preserve the residential character of existing neighborhoods and to prevent displacement of existing residents and vulnerable communities as new investments are made. Design standards and complete street policies will be critical as we move forward and engaging with the public as these are pursued will be required for their success. In addition, more specific implementation guidelines and cost analyses are necessary to be analyzed to turn this vision into a reality. Fane Alliance stands ready to assist in any way possible as this work continues and looks forward to being an active participant in this transformative vision. We appreciate planning staff's leadership in these efforts and respectfully recommend the approval and adoption of Imagine Nicholasville Road. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Blake Hall. Blake, you have been allowed to speak. If you want to unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record, please. Yes, my name is Blake Hall. I live at 36 Richmond Avenue for a 502. I'm just signing in to say that I support this plan right now. Me and many people I know avoid Nicholasville Road like the plague because it simply doesn't work well and it's not safe. Sprawl is unsustainable, both financially and environmentally. We can't continue to push people to surrounding counties for affordable housing because we refuse to allow our neighborhoods to change because some people are scared of three-story buildings. by encouraging other ways for people to get around other than a car that can run nine thousand dollars a year to just simply own we allow more people to be able to have a reasonable livelihood in lexington we have a substantial housing shortage and nicholasville road is one of those places that is drastically underbuilt. Just there's more asphalt than buildings. So I would just like to voice my support and hope that you all will also support it. Thank you. Thank you, Esau. Next up, Erin. Is it Pathaway? Pathaway, sorry. Erin, you've been allowed to speak if you want to unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record. Yes, my name is Erin Hathaway. I live at 123 12th Street, Lexington, Kentucky 40505. I just want to comment and say fully support and appreciate all that was done by the consultant team and the members of LFUCG who helped with the plan. But I do have just a comment and sort of a question for the team about, I think previously we heard a question raised about emergency vehicles and medians. And I just wanted to point out, you know, I think that a lot of us see the stretch of Richmond Road and Main Street. I guess that's East Main Street where there is a median and tree canopy that that sort of corridor, while it's very different, obviously, than Nicholasville Road is one that is probably one of the most beautiful stretches of street in the city. And so I just want to push, as we think through this plan moving forward, what that sort of open space and how we create that environment around our streets looks like. You know, whether it's providing stormwater or green infrastructure, trees to reduce the urban heat island effect, but also to, you know, beautify our corridors, what that approach is and how that can be implemented within Nicholasville Road. It's one of our sort of gateway corridors that a lot of people, whether they're residents or visitors, see. And so I would just push our planning along that corridor to think about what visually and environmentally that looks and feels like. So thank you. Thank you for your comments. Next is Stuart Smith. Stuart, if you want to unmute yourself, you can allow to speak and state your name and address for the record. Okay. Yeah. Stuart Smith, Senior Vice President of Redevelopment for CBL. My address is 2030 Hamilton Place Boulevard, Chattanooga, Tennessee. Yeah. So thank you guys. This was a great presentation. I have not been very involved in this process. I know our general manager, Myron Worley, some of you may know, and he's been sort of keeping an eye on it. It's kind of very exciting. It's also a little bit concerning because I don't really know what this means as far as flexibility for us in the future, what it means to our hotel redevelopment that we're working on. I looked at the criteria for picking the sites. And again, we love mixed use. We want to densify. I'm afraid a solid plan or a fixed plan will be adopted. That'll create a problem for flexibility in the future. We do want to add residential. We do want to add office. Unfortunately, this site is probably the last one that we could do it on. Two of the four criteria that you had for picking a site indicated that it would be feasible to acquire and redevelop. and another is that they're underperforming. The word underutilized, you could look at the parking lot and say, boy, I wish there was a building there. But this is our top performing mall, top performing Macy's, really high performing Dillard's. They own their land. I own my land. It's not a real flexible site. I can't imagine a major reformat for many years at this center. So, I mean, I'm just kind of questioning how we got on the list. If we continue and create a plan that changes the zoning for the mall, it would be awesome if it was mixed use, if whenever it happens, we can go, you know, eight story tall office buildings, you know, those kinds of things that can fit right in with what you're doing. Literally drawing a plan that says, you know, a building and a parking deck has to go in front of Macy's, it's just not actionable. So a little bit more flexible mixed use is what I would request. And, you know, try to avoid plans that designate parcels to be something specific. I mean, everybody that you see driving down Nicholasville, I mean, Macy's, Dillard's, all the exterior shops, they're only there because they have visibility to Nicholasville Road. And not a one of them is going to let me build, you know, a tall building in front of it. The chances are we would have to do it on the sides of the project, towards the rear of the project, and I'm just speaking at very broad strokes, and based on things that we're doing elsewhere, it's cool. The idea is cool, but I'm just asking for, you know, flexibility and maybe not so much fixed plans, so I'm just kind of throwing that out there. Stuart, thank you for your question and concerns, just so that we can get that particular one answered. Chris Woodall, would you mind addressing Stuart's question and concern about this being an actual plan, but it's more of a guide, but I think you can put it in better terms. Sure. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, we'd like to respond. It's actually what we've got in front of you is a concept plan. So when we're talking about our catalyst sites, what we've provided, what MKSK and the consultant teams have sort of put together are some ways that the concepts can work on a site. And so we wanted to do a little bit of a test case on some of these to give some recommendations for how those things could look. So to answer his question, just because there's happens to be one structure that's shown in a particular place in the concept plan doesn't mean that any development plan that comes forward would have to meet that plan exactly. So there is some flexibility. There's certainly some guiding principles in the plan for those catalyst sites and what we would hope to see out of those sites. And again, I'd like to sort of reemphasize that we're talking about an iterative process too as well. So there would be some flexibility for those sites to redevelop over time where we wouldn't expect for all those boxes to come out of the ground at one time, as so nice and neatly shown in the conceptual plan, it would be, you know, maybe one structure at a time and would happen in that incremental fashion. So there is some flexibility built into it and just some recommendations for the types of things we'd like to see. If you are on a phone and would like to comment, you can press star nine to raise your hand. Okay, Amy Clark. Amy, you've been allowed to speak if you want to unmute yourself and state your name and address for the record. Thank you. My name is Amy Clark and I live at 628 Castle Road in Lexington, and it's not far from the intersection with Cooper Drive. So it'd be right in the middle of the central downtown and the neighborhood areas. My question that I would urge the commission to consider very carefully today is what land use guidance for corridors for this corridor with this corridor area plan institute if adopted today. I would like the commission to be very clear on that will this plan adopted today be guidance for next zone change applications. um the part that is especially interesting to me runs from about page uh 57 through 61 and it's where it talks about the land use guidance for different sections of the corridors and in particular for the section called neighborhood um which runs along um the Central Baptist area, for example. There are sort of land use focus points here along the corridor frontage. There's a transitional area that's a half mile wide. Consider that this would go all the way to the railroad along Nicholasville Road at that area. It would take the entire residential neighborhood in its ambit. The railroad that Mr. Pope would like to see incorporating commuter rail. It's a very high line daily, a national freight line. The quarter mile stations would go more than halfway to the corridor, to the railroad in that area. Bus rapid transit has enormous funding challenges. The capital expense is one challenge And there are many avenues, especially recently developing avenues, that look quite promising. But Lex Tran testified, I believe it was to the MPO at a recent meeting discussing this very Nicholasville Road plan. The greater challenge is the operational funding, the maintenance, the ongoing support of bus rapid transit and winning ridership, which increases support and also the opportunities to claim support. um baptist hospital in this area and also the ancillary uses not in their control and ownership but the professional uses around it baptist hospital is directing its growth and development out by the interstate at hamburg and it's doing that the city is seconding that with major tax incentives it nearly cuts the property tax in half the payroll excuse me the payroll tax in half for the coming 20 years and with regulatory that is to say zoning and infrastructure incentives as well and the commission will recall that not long ago you approved a development plan that instituted or allowed for a major traffic signal changing the traffic pattern in that area The recent high-density development proposed on Nicholasville Road, just one recent development, 40 micro-apartments roughly opposite the hospital, was eager to spare the required open space to get relief from that requirement, but was not willing to stint at all on required parking. So if we institute some kind of land use principles that allow for density and development and design and dimensional standards that allow for higher intensity development, without having first the public infrastructure, the public facilities and services in place, I don't believe we will see a happy new sort of development. We'll see cramming. Please don't let the aspirations for land use outstrip the infrastructure in funding and implementation. let's first fund and build these public facilities and services then adopt a small area plan and then thereafter rewrite the zoning ordinance to incorporate these new design and dimensional standards for development a couple of reality checks i travel almost to work and i observe two out of three of the catalyst sites are offering outlots for sale or lease along exactly these positions and of course you just had someone testify that he's not willing to uh we have attempted to limit comment two minutes i i fully request that miss clark respect that request thank you mr davis i was trying to get her and i would ask that each of the speakers respect that two minutes i don't believe i've taken more time than several of the others. I'm taking the time, but I won't get into that. But I would do like for Mr. Woodall to answer your question, Ms. Clark. Mr. Chair, she sort of covered a lot of ground there. Is there something specific that you'd like me to about the guidelines for zoning yeah so i i guess i'll say that um you know the the consultants and i'd be happy for them to weigh into if they if they feel it's necessary but what they've proposed in these different um transit stop locations are context sensitive throughout the entire corridor based on specifically what she was talking about with the neighborhoods um and then our regional centers in our downtown and campus. So they've proposed some guidelines there that would be useful guidance for you all as you're anticipating land use decisions or zone change applications that come up to be able to weigh those against some of the recommendations that have been made. But again, those are conceptual. Those are guidelines that have been set out in order for us to achieve bus rapid transit. It's supposed to be transit-oriented development, so the recommendations were made from best practices from their vast experience with communities across the country in how we can achieve densities to make sure that the land use will support bus rapid transit, but yet also be context-sensitive to the areas where those transit stops are located. And I see Luis has popped on here as well, if you'd like to add on to that. Sure. And good afternoon, everyone. My name is Luis Huber-Cavo of MKSK. I work alongside the city on the regulatory framework section. And I think there's a very good comment on the specifically the neighborhood typology. I would just like to note that that typology in particular was written to prioritize infill on Nicholasville Road. and really try to focus on the transition area on really thinking through how does density step down from higher density along the corridor to relate to the scale and context of the residential communities that surround the corridor. So the typology in the ranges that it provides, it really tries to address that context and ensure that development as it occurs along the corridor remains contextual and sensitive to the neighborhoods. That was something that was written in particular from feedback that we received in two meetings with representatives from these communities. And we've gone through a few edits in some of the typology maps to ensure that the areas that are residential in nature are covered by this typology as well. And I would just state that the way that the dimensional standards have been presented, we've included ranges, and that's based on best practices like Chris mentioned. In a future zoning ordinance, the city could take these ranges and find the appropriate standard for future zoning ordinance. So that would be a later process, is my understanding. Thank you, Luis. Next, we have a caller, number 859-492-4333. Will you state your name, please, and address? Call number 492-4333. You can allow to speak if you want to press star six on your phone and identify yourself. Hi, this is Barry Saturday, 3416 Laredo Drive. I wanted to make a comment on a few things. First, the public input portions of this, planning sends out surveys regularly about these options and what people want. But they're really disingenuous and unscientific and should not be relied on by anybody, a planning commission, city council, or anyone, as they don't explain the true intent of the comprehensive plan. And many aren't aware of the impact of vehicular traffic that plan will create. And those surveys don't explain that whatsoever. Going door to door during political involvement, I visited thousands of people. And roughly, when I explained to them that they were going to remove, the conference of plans intent was to remove driving lanes for cars on every major artery in town. Roughly 98% of the people I spoke with about this said they did not want that. Of the 2% who said they did, they were involved in the project to some extent generally. So there really is no public interest at all in what actually is going to happen with this comprehensive plan in the Nicholsville Road portion. Make no mistake, I have talked to Chris Woodall and some of these others about their intents. And this is not just going to happen on Nicholsville Road. They're going to take lanes away on Taste Creek Road, too. When I spoke with Chris and the number three there at planning in 2018, I asked them what happens when there's a major traffic jam, say at a UK game or rush hour. There's only two lanes each way. So if there's a major traffic jam, one of those lanes is a bus lane. How does an ambulance get through there? And what if there's a car wreck? And the response I got was, well, maybe the injured person can take the bus. that's not a joke. That is the comment made to me by the planning team. They have not thought this through. They have not contacted Fayette County Public Schools, including Myron Thompson. They had not contacted Manny Calk as of last year when I spoke with them about this. So there is not any real thought going through as to how this will impact others. It's a bus agenda that They just will not stop at getting through until it has been implemented, even though no one really wants it. Second, on taxes, the public needs to know what the cost will actually be in tax increases. Simply saying revenue options are available is not an effective response to this question. There is a lot more I could say given more than two minutes, but I think that's plenty for you to think about. Please, all involved, vote no on this plan. Thank you very much, Mr. Sardy. We'll bring this back to the commission. Floor is open for additional comments, questions, concerns, or emotions to either push this through or not. Ms. Blumley? Thank you. I particularly was appreciative to hear Fayette Alliance's comment about keeping neighborhood preservation. And I think that that, along with the mission statement of the 2018 comprehensive plan to be flexible yet focused in our planning guidance and using our community resources wisely. I think that should be something that we think about moving forward if we do with this plan. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Blum. Thank you. I'd just like to say that I think Mr. Pope raises a very interesting idea about exploring other options other than, you know, other ways of transit. And I think it would be short-sighted to not take some time to explore that. Thank you. Mr. Wilson? Yes. Yeah, I was, Ms. Meyer really hit it on the head. I was intrigued by Mr. Pope's thought about the rail option. I guess my question was going to be to the staff or to the consultants, did they even consider that rail option? Casey's coming up. Yeah, I was going to ask Tim to join me if he could. I can start. I know that it has been looked at in Lexington, the concept of light rail in the past. There have been studies. I am quite certain that they looked at that rail line as part of that investigation. And it was determined that it's not feasible for Lexington for a couple of different reasons. One is the railroad has zero interest in moving, and that's a heavy freight line, and they don't have any other right-of-way corridor that's within their ownership to do that, so that would force them to find right-of-way elsewhere to move that freight. The second was that Lexington is not near as dense as the communities that have light rail systems. And, in fact, we're teetering on not being dense enough yet for bus rapid transit as well. So for us to even begin to be competitive or to get to the point where bus rapid transit is an attractive option, this plan is trying to point us in that direction. That was an outcome from the transit alternatives analysis study that LexTran conducted in 2014. They said, you know, here's how you could make this happen, but one of the things that you need to do is provide additional density along that corridor. So that is, you know, this plan is kind of an outcome of that. But the densities that are required for light rail are extraordinarily more intense than what we're looking at, even here in Lexington. And there's just so little chance that we would be competitive, given all of the light rail projects that are seeking funding across the country in much more dense, dense communities that I just don't think that it's feasible. And it's not just I. I think others agree that it's not really a feasible option for Lexington at this time. But I would invite Tim to add to that in a way. Sure. Yeah. Kenzie, your initial comment, essentially, you can almost stop at that point because you need a willing partner that might want to sell. You can't mix buses and freight trains. And so, in other words, even if you had the land to put them side by side, that just is not feasible from a safety and regulatory point of view. But I would agree that in terms of the extremely high investment in rail, that it does require a much higher level of density and population to make it worth your while. So we did look at it. The line itself parallels Nicholasville Road. I mean, it's well situated in that way, but it is a major freight line. that is highly unlikely to be budged, and they control it, and they would have the last say. Okay, well, thank you all both for your answers. I think they were complete, comprehensive, and I appreciate it. Thank you. As a commission, as I stated, we either need to adopt this plan or not. Mr. Bell? Yes, sir. Mr. Chair, I feel it was a very thorough examination and study. I think they've worked very well with staff. I think it's a terrific concept, and I would move for approval of this particular plan. Second. We've got a motion and a second. Do we have any further comments? I'm seeing any. All in favor, raise your hand. We have Mr. Wilson, Mr. Plumlee, Mr. Davis. Okay. Unanimous. Motion passes. Thank you. Before we move forward, I want to make sure if this staff has anything additional we'd like to say. Good afternoon, planning commission members. Let's see, who are we? Saturday Night Live team, maybe. Thank you all for being here this afternoon for a special public hearing for this, and thank you for your consideration, your questions, your comments, which, of course, as we move to implement this plan over the years, and it will be many years, we will incorporate the comments that you have made, and they will certainly be a part of how we evaluate these sites in the future. Remind you all of your next scheduled meeting, which is next Thursday, May the 27th. That will be your monthly zoning hearing. And another reminder that we have added, the Planning Commission has added a work session at the end of that zoning hearing where we will talk about open space. So we look forward to seeing you all next week. Thank you. If I could, Mr. Chairman, can I ask Mr. Duncan one quick question? Does that suggest that we don't have that many zoning items and that we do have, in other words, is this going to be another 16-hour meeting or is it going to be a reasonable portion of time? No, sir, we did not add the work session because of the agenda itself. I believe it will be an ordinary agenda, but because we took this time to have a public hearing, we still have some work session work to do with you all, so we would like to do that next week following the zoning hearing. Do I need to pack my dinner? Well, I think you just need to walk across the hall, don't you? That's true right now. Mr. Wilson, I figure you were going to respond and say, well, what's your definition of ordinary? Well, I could have asked that. I didn't want to prolong the meeting. I was more or less just simply trying to figure out how long this would take and whether we had enough zoning items to completely complete our agenda and then add that on top. You know, that's all. Thank you. You're welcome. Meeting's adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.